Loot Based crafting...

[HratLi]

Greetings All,
Here is an idea that worked VERY well in AC, and I am hoping that it helps bridge the gap between the adventurers and crafters. How about Loot Based Crafting?

In AC there were common Staples. You had things like potions, healing Hearty Pizza's, etc... Then you had special loot based crafted items. For instance Kill enough mattikars, and you eventually find a skin, that could be crafted into a great bit of armour, the association was almost guaranteed. You knew when you found that skin, you were about set for a new coat, all that was left was finding a crafter for it. I could see that working here. It SEEMS to be what we are working towards with the Kwellen hides.

The other thing that keeps EVERYONE opening EVERY corpse is their great loot system. We don't do droppable usable loot, so that's a moot point, but at least the part above would be workable here. I think we are close to TRYING for something like this with the blighted gear. It generates random sometimes cool stuff... but it's so disassociated in terms of the steps involved that the adventurer oh ho hum, another Core when they find a blighted item.
What everyone wants is the viscerally satisfying find.

Where they'd go COOL! A weapon crystal! I wonder what it's STATS ARE. (Randomness within a range is key).

Or COOL! Imbuement crystal! (You can use it to 'imbue' an psuedorandom effect on an item). Maybe Attack Imbues would give a +X to +XX and convert to elemental attack. A Resist Imbue would give a +x to +xx resist to an element. Something like that. There would be a good market for things like that and it make all of our gear unique.

-HratLi

[Senkeleron Fell]

They did that exact thing with the trinkets. Excitement lasted about a week.

And we have crystals. And the only way to make something rare is to make it RARE.

[HratLi]

I disagree, The crystals we have are VERY static. There is no sort of excitement. Unless it's a Dark Garnet, for the most part it's a 'Eat for XP'. It inspires about as much excitement as finding a blighted cedar long bow. Having something that MIGHT be different and cool is the difference Blighted weapons are neat to look at because of the random generation. And note I made no mention about the rarity. But keep in mind that if you make it too rare, it's just like SoG, Camped to heck and back because it's the best chance at cool Demon loot. Since we have no 'durability' thngs last forever, and with our small population, unless you make it Camp Only, you will eventually get fully saturated. With the crystal example I was giving it would be just as easy to allow repeated embues, each one overwriting the last, that would cause a lot of 'burn' on these crystals getting them out of the system, just to see what else happens or how high you can get.

And for trinkets, well I don't know. I toss everything except for Ethereal and Blesseds. Even those are 'eh' because a lot of times the buffs are mediocre, and after your first hour you've seen them all, I personally have decided they're not worth using.

-HratLi

[Senkeleron Fell]

Exactly. That is because they are not rare.

There are crystals that are cool, beveled, sizzling, and what not. And they are probably cool because they are rare, not everyone and their cousins has five or six.

[HratLi]

Hehe... You can make trinkets or Weapon crystals a one in 100,000 drop, doesn't mean they are any more worthwhile or anticipated. It's all about the POSSIBILITIES, I think that everyone will at least glance at a blighted weapon's stats. An aqua crystal will always be an aqua crystal. No helping that, and that it doesn't even match an equivalent Tier Tech, makes them static and useless, I don't care HOW rare they are. If Crystal != Dark Garnet, Then eat/pawn.

As for the Rough cut, bevelled, etc. I think everyone and their cousin who was around at the time DO have them in half dozen to a few dozen at a time. I'm NOT a collector, but even I have a half dozen or so that I share with my wife. sizzlings/glowings/icy's etc, they are not hard to get, and at 30 to a few hundred silver very worthwhile because of what they do.

Sorry if I seem arguementative, but I think you were missing my points, so wanted to clarify.

-HratLi

[Senkeleron Fell]

Yea, I guess I am not seeing what you are suggesting that we don't already have in one form or another. Blighted things have random stats, and you can take blight cores and have a crafter make you an item with random stats. Trinkets have a random effect but most people are tired of them.

(why exactly is a dark garnet weapon crystal so good? I have one but have never used it, leaning more toward beveled, sizzling, etc)

[HratLi]

Don't get Fixated on crystals. I'm talking about creating items. New things, the crystals was just one small idea supplementing it, and the crystals could be used to imbue a new effect onto an existing item. Perhaps a small resist or ward effect. Think of crafting a new exotic armour or weapon from dropped materials instead of harvested materials.

As for the dark garnet, it can be used in ADDITION to a deadlands crystal. It adds +1 delay adjusted to the weapon. Ideal complement to a high delay weapon like a Maul, but almost useless to a low delay item like a Monk's Handwrap. I often wonder if this was/is a bug. Heck as a Disciple we get a necklace that is +1 delay adjusted damage, and that replaces all other functionality that you could get out of that necklace slot, so it seems that a tier 1 crystal to have that ability seems somehow wrong.

Make sense now?
-HratLi

[Senkeleron Fell]

Don't get Fixated on crystals. I'm talking about creating items. New things, the crystals was just one small idea supplementing it, and the crystals could be used to imbue a new effect onto an existing item. Perhaps a small resist or ward effect. Think of crafting a new exotic armour or weapon from dropped materials instead of harvested materials.

As for the dark garnet, it can be used in ADDITION to a deadlands crystal. It adds +1 delay adjusted to the weapon. Ideal complement to a high delay weapon like a Maul, but almost useless to a low delay item like a Monk's Handwrap. I often wonder if this was/is a bug. Heck as a Disciple we get a necklace that is +1 delay adjusted damage, and that replaces all other functionality that you could get out of that necklace slot, so it seems that a tier 1 crystal to have that ability seems somehow wrong.

Make sense now?
-HratLi

But crystals DO imbue a new ability on an already crafted item. I take an item with a slot, add a crystal, new ability. And new armor and weapons are created with special abilities granted by drops. All techs are dropped items, true? In fact, I can create a nice shiny new weapon with special powers only from drops. I can use ore and essence dropped from mobs and techs dropped from mobs and have it crafted into a magical weapon. Is it different if I get a Kwellen Skin and make armor out of it? Not really, just a difference in scale and presentation. They can make as many new and exotic types of armor and weapons as they have time and art resources to draw up. But it isn't really a 'new' kind of loot.

[AmonGwareth]

The only way to get the absolute BEST buffs from Trinkets is to take a chance and use the Blighted or Cursed ones.

Weapon and Armor Dye Kits (on blight) are loot-based crafting.

[HratLi]

Amon, does that mean that the comps for the dye kits are drop only? If so then yes, that's exactly the idea!

-HratLi

[AmonGwareth]

Yes, they are

[Senkeleron Fell]

I hope they aren't as common as the trinkets, nobody even wants those anymore because they turned out to be too frequent.